Hmm. I don't want to step on any toes, so I'm just going to answer somewhat generally. There are many smart people at iRobot, and most of em have many crazy id

Hmm. I don't want to step on any toes, so I'm just going to answer somewhat generally. There are many smart people at iRobot, and most of em have many crazy ideas. Because the Home Robots side doesn't get government funding, iRobot needs to invest a fair amount into a product before it sees a customer. That means that the market potential needs to be vetted before proceeding. All of this is pretty intuitive. They've turned around this product really fast. That's what iRobot is good at: making something that actually works, really quickly. Like many companies, employees are early testers of the products. One VERY smart guy at the company once quipped: "robotics is the study of the failure modes of connectors". It's sad because it's so true.